Squamish has been the backdrop for a great many Hollywood films – but the one that sometimes seems to epitomize the town wasn’t actually filmed here.
Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray, was about a man doomed to relive the same day over and over again until he was finally able to break the pattern.
Does that sound like Squamish debating the Oceanfront to you?
That once-in-a-lifetime gift of 60 acres of prime land, given to the District of Squamish 10 years ago in exchange for $3, sits undeveloped, a massive monument to lost momentum and squandered potential. Worse, it has become a $10-million millstone around the community’s neck.
Now, for the second time in that 10-year history, a deal to finally develop seems tantalizingly close, but is once again caught up in contention.
Even the players haven’t changed – though the sides they find themselves on have. Those who fought to defend the 2006 deal, like then-SODC chair Larry Murray, are leading the charge against the current proposal, while Coun. Doug Race, one of the principal activists opposing the 2006 deal, is among the champions of the 2014 version.
Everyone wants the Oceanfront developed, but because nobody can agree on how to proceed, it remains a blank slate – with an ever-increasing credit card balance.
It seems appropriate, then, that we repeat the words of an editorial we ran on the Oceanfront back in October 2006, in the wake of the last failed deal to develop the Oceanfront. Replace the words “Ian Sutherland” with “Rob Kirkham” and it holds up surprisingly well:
“While many people have conscientious objections to the MOU and the public process, we strongly suspect there are also people whose main motivation is antipathy towards Mayor Ian Sutherland. To those people, we say: consider ideas on their merits, not just on who’s presenting them. Things are moving too quickly in Squamish for us to cut off our nose to spite our face.”
Our next council needs both a mandate and a will to act – and promptly. Otherwise, we’ll never stop waking up at 6 a.m. in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to the strains of “I Got You Babe.”
(Read the original editorial at: http://www.squamishchief.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-ripping-it-up-1.1110587)
